little Peter almost wished that he could fashion them as he did his bits of mould and see if they would not change into something better.
So then the king called a meeting of his High Council, and his councillors hurried into their robes of state and appeared on the grassy plateau when the evening was lighting the place to be a glory.
“Lo, now,” said the king, “I needs must send a message to all my people. Let us devise or dream some way to take it.”
When they heard the message, the councillors nodded, with their hands over their mouths, looking at the ground.
Then the king said—there, in the beginning of the world:—
“I have a thought about a wire which shall reach round the earth and oversea and undersea, on which a man may send a message. And a thought I have about a wire which shall stretch across the land, and upon that wire a voice may travel alone. And a thought about messages that shall pierce the air with no wire and no voice. But none of these things is now.”
(“Nay,” said the council, murmuring among themselves, “or ever shall be.”)
